


An Astonishing Case of Naivety

by clickingkeyboards



Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Beach Holidays, Beaches, Best Friends, Crushes, Day At The Beach, F/M, Female Friendship, Holidays, M/M, Male Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Summer Holidays, friends - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:49:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23086552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: On Hazel’s birthday, the day after The Detective Society and the Junior Pinkertons competed to solve The Case of the Drowned Pearl, the four detectives soak under the rare sunshine on the beaches of the English seaside.
Relationships: Alexander Arcady/Hazel Wong, Harold Mukherjee/Bertie Wells
Comments: 1
Kudos: 45





	An Astonishing Case of Naivety

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Give_Me_A_Karking_KitKat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Give_Me_A_Karking_KitKat/gifts).



“All this love nonsense is really quite ridiculous!” Daisy complained, stretching out on her towel and sighing. “Even Bertie and Harold have caught it!”

Alexander laughed uproariously, falling back on his towel and stretching out his hands above his head. “Oh, isn’t it?” he agreed, turning his face up to take in the sun. In his bathing costume, shorts and a thin vest, he looked glaringly handsome and more boyish than ever, toned arms and sharp collar bones, and California skin that burnished beautifully with a tan from the slightest drop of sun. Daisy shot me a teasing look of raised eyebrows and a slight smirk, and I buried my burning face in my hands.

“Those two are unfathomably obvious, it’s no small wonder that it isn’t all over Cambridge by now!” I added, desperate to stop the jesting pokes that Daisy was rather violently dealing to my side.

With a sigh at a ripple of warmth that passed over the beach, Alexander brushed a hand through his blond hair and said, “I noticed it within perhaps twenty minutes of seeing the two in the same room. George was being an utter pill about a small case that we detected in early December — no offence — so I started to pay attention to everyone around me. When there was a joke told and everyone was in uproar, they would always look at each other. After all, when you laugh, you look at the person in the group that you like the most. Daisy, did you know that you and Hazel always look at each other?”

Astonishingly, Daisy barely gave a hint of disapproval or judgment before responding in kind. “It’s rather disgustingly sweet. Goodness knows how Alfred Cheng hasn’t picked up on it.”

“Alfred doesn’t care enough,” I point out. When Alexander’s eyes land on me, I find myself burning up, hurrying to slightly shift down the bottom of my bathing suit to cover more of my thighs, which looked awfully bulging and compared to Daisy’s long and slender legs. My bathing suit is dark blue with a sailor’s collar and the white patterns typical of the design. It is the most grown-up thing that I have ever owned and, although I feel glamorous, my body does not seem to fit with something so terribly modern.

“Alfred Cheng doesn’t care enough,” I repeated, recovering myself. “He is far too busy being a rather conceited cool customer to care about what is going on in other people’s lives.”

Daisy let out a laugh at that, and we grinned at each other for a moment before she spoke. “You are right! But goodness, how awfully romantic Harold and Bertie seem to be. Even from what I’ve gathered from my brother’s letters and phone calls, it’s absolutely domestic.”

For the past half an hour, George had been relaxing on his back while soaking up the sun in an effort to tan his Indian skin as much as possible. “Being dark is not a curse,” he had said that morning as we left the hotel in the surprising sun. “I should not pretend that it is.”

Astonishingly enough, though it is rather common nowadays, he stripped off his shirt the moment we reached the beach and stretched out on his towel. When Alexander voiced his astonishment, George said that he wouldn’t pin him as a prude and, in retaliation, Alexander wrestled him into the sand. In a playfully boyish fashion of being best friends, they fought in a tangle of limbs for several minutes before growing tired and falling back gasping on their towels.

Since that moment, George had been utterly tuned out of all of our conversation and observations of beach goers, only pitching in here and there with analysis of his own.

However, at Daisy’s (rather loud) proclamation, he propped himself up on his elbows and said, “What?” with horror on his face.

“You know,” Alexander said before Daisy and I could begin (irritation crossed her face at that, and I had to laugh), “all that’s going on behind closed doors between your brother and Bertie.”

“Bertie?” he repeated. Unusual for George, as he considers repetition of futile exercise and a waste of the precious time that he could spend using his vocal chords to dissect a case.

“Ye-es?” Alexander replied, drawing the word out to two syllables. “Keep up, will you? This is old news, George.”

He made a noise that sounded like what you would get if you burst an ink cartridge all over a piece of paper and then tried to make sense of the splatters. “Wait— Alex, what are you trying to tell me?”

This set Alexander off laughing. He doubled over with wheezing bursts of laughter, shoulders shaking with mirth. “You had no idea?!” he exclaimed between gasps.

Daisy and I were gone in an instant, the moment Alexander vocalised what George was confused about: we couldn’t figure it out at first, not being as close to him as Alexander is. However, with it being out in the open, we were free to lose it laughing. George spluttered frantically, stuttering as I have never heard him do before, trying to explain himself. Other patrons on the beach were turning to us as we made a raucous scene. I imagine now how we must have looked to others on the beach: four teenagers, two people of colour and one proudly American, three laughing up a storm at seemingly nothing while the fourth vehemently protests. 

When we managed to recover so that we were merely gasping for breath, George started to explain himself. “I know that I seem like the worst kind of fool — Alex, do cut out that look — but I can explain myself. My brain is like Sherlock’s, an attic stocked with boxes of everything I need to know. Previous cases, analytical methods, unsolved cases, detection methods, school, current cases, Alexander, my family, you girls, and other things. There is no space for romance that isn’t case-related.”

“But surely,” I began, shocking myself, “that should be filed under ‘family’, right?”

Daisy and Alexander fell about laughing again, while George sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “White people,” he muttered.

We locked eyes then, and burst out laughing too.


End file.
